Keeping You up to date on the status of Virginia's 2005 Delegate races!

Tuesday, November 08, 2005

Creigh Deeds Wins- NOT!

Creigh Deeds is down about 11,000 now, but with precincts in Richmond, Norfolk and Fairfax County's record absentee count still waiting to report, he looks to have been elected. Henrico still has some out, but they are mostly in Varina, a swing area that Bob McDonnell shouldn't win by a large margin.

I could be wrong on this, but thats my take from what is out there.

UPDATE: McDonnell had a damned impressive showing in Hanover to retake the lead. Creigh will end up about 2,000 short.

You're jumping early on this one NLS. Petersburg and Richmond won't make up for lots of Hanover and some more Henrico. The only way CD wins is if large numbers of absentee ballots are still out and they break heavily his way.

Wow, NLS, you may be right. Those are heavily D Richmond precincts (although turnout there is always iffy) and some D in Henrico. Still working on my analysis using margins from 2001 (G race - closest proxy). Thoughts?

Si Pi, Deeds is a few percent behind warner in hanover, but richmond precincts had 100-150 more votes this year than in 01, and those are 90%ers. Add that absentees left and Creigh wins. Remember, rural more GOP counties do absentees different, they put them with the returns of the precinct they came from, and Fairfax County had a record number of absentees this year

As will my directly above post, deeds will end up closer to 4 or 4.3k short

Not sure recoun will swing that hight a number, Deeds will pick up 1-2.2 on recount, at close tommorrow AM will def be down 4k

Some of the precincts not in yet have gone home for the night, look for election "mysteries" because of that, not fraud, just stupid people...Any luck and it will swing Deeds way...

All in all, Deeds is lucky to have it this close. Polls had him blown out, and his advertising in areas like NOVA where could have easily picked up an extra 2-4k were lackluster at best.

Kaine ran well for his post, but the ticket ran weak, its a shame that so much energy was spent solely on Kaine and Byrne got burned by her sex and Deeds got burned by McDonnell's "I'm a friend of the 5-0, and i'll destroy our non-existant meth problem!" ads.

Bleah, poorly run ticket, well run govenor's campaign, can't win them all!

Judging from the latest election returns, we're going to have endless recounts. It will be days before we know who won. Flip a coin and you'll have a half chance of being right.

McDonnell's margin has shrunk to 1,900 votes with at least 2,300 votes left uncounted. More importantly, a recount will shift at least 1,000 votes to the Democrats. (In the close Slade Gorton vs. Maria Cantwell and Christine Gregoire v. Dino Rossi races in Washington State, which has fewer voters than Virginia, recounts consistently swung more than 1,000 votes to the Democrats).

The Virginian-Pilot quotes him as saying that the three precincts supposedly still outstanding -- including one in Richmond, a Democratic bastion -- are actually "ghost precincts."

No one is cited contradicting that observation, and the Richmond precinct that supposedly hasn't reported yet has the same precinct number as one that already has, providing support for McDonnell's ghost precinct observation.

So much for Deeds' prospects of getting several hundred votes out of Richmond.

So McDonnell still has a margin of 1500 votes to burn in a recount. Deeds may pick up 1000 votes in a recount, at the outside margin, but he won't get 1500.

Thus, McDonnell is the new Attorney General, although he will have to await the formalities of the recount process.

The votes are coming from the careful correcting of mistakes made by election officials on election night, according to an election official commenting on the changes. Apparently, GOP and Dem reps are watching every move & every correction.

410 votes is mighty slim.

Strange...when the vote is first counted (in the rush of election night) it is GOP candidates to always get a benefit. (Maybe they are just lucky that way.) Then when votes are actually counted with bipartisan watchdogsa at every corner to garuntee fairness, the GOP votes drop a little.

If the trend continues on these ballots coming in, Deeds will, indeed, retake the lead. I'd guess they're likely either provisional ballots or additional absentees from Fairfax County.Anybody know for sure approximately how many more ballots are out?

kirk, I have been thinking about that all day, especially as someone here and few other places said that these were just "corrections" of initial mistakes. I wonder if democratic areas may be more mistake-prone because they are in more densely populated areas and perhaps the workers are busier than in rural precincts, say. That's a non-conspiracy explanation, though it's hard not to think conspiracy when every "mistake" in every election I have been old enough to care about seems to benefit the republican.

if what is going on is "corrections" are Deeds currently gaining the benefits he would from a recount. Are these clerical errors that are being corrected or new votes being found? Basically, when its done will a recount change it even further?